This is really a moderately standard Cyber Punk plot, but bound to be new to those people who have little experience with the genre. The plot may be a little difficult for most people to understand the first time.

Serial Experiments: Lain is has a curious setting; "present day, present time". The series is based on a voyage of discovery in a world where the boundaries between the real world and the world inside computers have become blurred. The main character is a school girl called Lain, who feels isolated and out of touch with her family and school mates. In a world where her school fellows communicate with one another by digital pagers and computers, Lain is encouraged by one of her friends to get into computers. This she does, and then she embarks on a confusing voyage that starts with an email message from a girl who is dead and twists through a complex labyrinthine plot that leads her to question her very being. The presentation of the Lain series is avant-garde, unfortunately I think this is done to be deliberately wierd.

A story is a method of giving information to an audience. This is done by linking ideas to one another. That means a story that is easy to understand, is one that provides information which connects to ideas you already know, through either experience, or information that the story provides. This means that you can learn how to get information from movies/TV better, by having seen more or similar stuff that will increase your understanding of (say) a genre or type of plot.

This is a cyber story. It is a story of the real world and its relationship to cyberspace. If you have an interest in cyberpunk or Japanese anime it may be easier to understand. If you have no interest in these things, I suggest you steer well clear of this. It is, however, a fairly straight forward cyber-plot. It seems designed to come across as more surreal by telling the story in bits and pieces that don't seem to link together. I don't know whether or not this is supposed to make it mysterious but it lends little to the pace of the story and not a lot to its cohesion; an ironic fate for a story all about networking ideas.

Subtle(ish) relation of "the Wired" to Wonderland is made, in the form of a character called Chisha Neko (Cheshire Cat); a disembodied smile. For some reason the english version (Pioneer) has failed to grasp the transliterated names such as Rain(Lain)'s best friend Arisu(Alice).

I'm guessing that the translation is difficult to do at times. I don't know how accurate it is in places. To my ears the Japanese language track sounds better but this is personal preference. The typeset of the subtitles in the Pioneer DVD version is easy to read.

Personally I think the colouring is innovative, but for a piece with so much focus on eyes, the eyes could have been drawn in a more attractive way... this is personal preference.

This is a series that not everyone will understand and in that way it has become popular with people who like stuff that they can't understand. This sort of person seems to be scarily common in the wider animé fan community. It is the sort of story that hard science-fiction fans and cyberpunk fans will probably find easier to palate. I suggest watching it before you consider buying it, though it is, in my opinion, worth seeing at least once, and I suggest seeing it all fairly close together so that you don't get lost in the plot.

Present Day, Present Time, and everything is not what it seems... Yes, you have entered the world of Serial Experiments Lain. Please please, if you watch this, watch it when you are wide awake, paying attention, miss it for a second and you will be completely lost. This is an anime where you need to bring your philosophy friend and no one else, then discuss the anime for 6 hours after you have seen it. Personally, I was totally impressed by this anime, and I thouroughly enjoyed it, but be warned, this is not everyone's cup of tea. Many people I know, and many review sites, HATED this anime and wanted nothing else other than to throw it away, there are other sites however, that have shrine's to Lain, it all depends if this is your type of anime or not.

Animation - Superb. The only qualm I have is stock background, it bugs the crazy otaku!!!! I enjoyed how they animators took the animation to a different style and it made it really enjoyable to me.

Plot - Well, it is the most complicated plot there is. To put it simply it is experiments of Lain Iwakura, and how she handles these 'experiments'. However, many, many different interpretations can be derived from this plot. You will just have to see it for yourself if you like it.

Humor - It is a Drama, so Comedy is not always present in this anime. However, I did enjoy the humor that it provided.

Soundtrack - Just plain cool. I would highly recomend the remix soundtrack if you like techno, it is still one of my personal favorites. The bootleg CD I would not recomend as it seems to be just random sounds found in the anime. Also the remix CD has a cool version of the opening song.

Overall - One sweet anime that caresses the soul. I would highly recomend it if you like a deep though and debate anime. If you like Dragon Ball Z, don't even bother.

WHat first attracted me to thsi show was the cover of the box. a young girl in front of a fence in the night with power lines and a dark moon. It sorta reminded me of the Xfiles. So i bought the video thinking that it was going to be like Akira (my only other anime outing) but i was wrong. This is a good thing. Lain has to be one of the greatest teenager characters of all times. I have to hand it to the writer of this. Hw or she really knows about life of a teenager in thw 90's, Japan or America or anywhere. The issues addressed within the series (Religion,your relationships, your family life, and growing matter of the growing bond of humans and computers). I'm a teenager in america and myself often wonder what the hell is going on in this world like Lain is. I'm raised catholic and often have doubted the 'word'of god and our realationship with him. This is brought up within the series as well with the 'god' of the wired. one of the other reviewers said that this show was made specifically for the japanese. I have to beg to differ here since most of the back ground of this series is deeply embedded in the american mthology of the roswell crash and the MJ-12. I bought this show thinking i was going to get a bloodfest but instead i got an uplifting expierience that made me appreciate life a little. For parents out there who are concerned about violence and such, well theres 10x more violence in a single episode of Pokemon than in the entire series of Lain. Its mostly just mild profanty and the themes that were addressed.

Hands down the best TV show ever. Drama, dark comedy, paranoia... can anyone say incredible. Doesn't matter if it's anime or not, this is the greatest show in the freakin world! Screw DragonBallZ and Pokemon, see Lain.

The animation is true to japanese anime and japanese anime is my fav types of cartoons(except pokemon and digimon). The story line is somewhat vague to you if you just know start to watch it. I did not have a hard time following but im sure younger kids wouldl. I like it but the only problem is at the end of every episode its amystery so you know. And here in America where you dont get it on public tv makes you wonder what happenbs next. The characters are true to the environment except for Lains family(they are really freaky). It seems rather sad. Lain cant discover who she is or what she is. She has no true friend or a real family. Its like Oliver Twist except she has an advance computer.

This series makes my brain hurt. But in a good way.Like brainfreeze from a good slurpee in mid summer.And here i thought no ending could mess up my mind as bad atEnd of Evangelion...boy was i wrong, huh?

An engaging, cerebral story with phenomenal art. What I loved about this series was they didn't present the story line like other animes do. You know the formula... some wiseman or master explains everything and all that's left is the inevitable outcome/showdown. In Lain, it's exactly NOT like that! Each episode gets you thinking. And the next reveals more information which make you reasses what you think is happening. So, you get to see a great anime unfolding with each episode. Definitely worth owning on DVD. (Did I mention that the art is phenomenal?)